Journal sam_handelman's Journal: Education, Differences between Repubs and Dems 2
More NCLB-related musings.
Venture philanthropy: you use your philaonthrophic foundation (like the Gates foundation) to "leverage" your donations in order to pursue your policy goals.
To run this at a direct profit - you donate $30 mil to a philanthrophy (which you run), and then you get the state to "match" your donation, and then you get the philanothropy to spend the $60 mil buying services form a company which you have set up to provide them. There are all kinds of ways to use this kind of leverage to further your policy goals (directing policy towards "market based" solutions), but this is the most egregious.
Not only is the Emperor naked - he has invested in the invisible cloth manufacturing concern, and when some kid says "why is that man naked?" they hold him back for a year and he drops out of school instead of graduating.
Getting back to the difference between the Dems and Republicans: if you study the training offerings which the current crop of educational services have for science education, there is very clearly nothing there. There are warehouses and warehouses all over Texas (also CA and MA) full of invisible cloth that these hucksters want to sell.
These are all programs that were envisaged and flourished under the administrations of Republican governors.
The Democrats are also willing and eager to use venture philanthropy as an ideological tool to sell off the country at firehouse-sale rates. But they, at least, are competent enough to produce some kind of useable educational services out of it.
It's Iraq and Katrina writ large - the Dems have constiuents such that they have some concern over maintaining a functioning society. The Republicans have no such interest - there's no substance at all to their proposals, just the graft.
Thank you (Score:1)
Sad example (Score:2)
http://dubyaurb.blogspot.com/2008/01/rich-dad-poor-dad.html [blogspot.com]